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why is the US not Metric

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bsfeechannel:

--- Quote from: rstofer on February 26, 2020, 06:13:27 pm ---Here is an article that claims THE international standard for the kg is kept in an underground vault in Paris.  I'm been to Paris but I wasn't searching for the vault.  Maybe the article is wrong, I wouldn't know.

https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/science/mathematics/el-sistema-metrico-la-medida-de-todo/

There are dozens of 'identical' copies but these are, at best, secondary standards.

The meter used to be a metal bar kept in, you guessed it, Paris!  Now it is defined based on the wavelength of a certain frequency of light.  This is easier to duplicate around the world.

I just know what I have read and I have to believe the article is based on some facts.  But, it's the Internet, facts are not in abundance.

--- End quote ---

The article you posted is outdated. The kilogram was THE LAST metric base unit still held as a prototype by several countries, including the US, when it was replaced by a standard based on the Planck constant, on the meter and on the second in November 2018.

The meter was defined in terms of the speed of light in 1983 and the second in terms of subatomic properties of Cesium 133 in 1967!

What is ironic is that the US and the UK played important roles in the transition from the prototypes to the current standards.

Now go and tell Joe Sixpack and Jane Average on the street that the metric system is as American as corn dogs. Please.

rstofer:

--- Quote from: bsfeechannel on February 26, 2020, 09:52:05 pm ---Now go and tell Joe Sixpack and Jane Average on the street that the metric system is as American as corn dogs. Please.

--- End quote ---

Why?  They're content with the existing system and have nothing to gain by the change.  What?  We gain conformity with Europe?  That really isn't a goal. Left to their daily lives, they probably don't give Europe a moment's thought per year!

When I arrived to work in Singapore, one of the very high up manager's asked what we thought of Singapore in the US.  I told him I didn't know, it had never come up in my family and I was pretty sure it didn't come up in many other families either.  If you had a relationship with the country, like family, sure, you gave it some thought.  The only thing I could think of was the jackets with the embroidered tiger that the sailors picked up when they stopped in for R&R.  It's kind of the same deal with Europe.  Every body knows it's 'over there' but nobody cares.

SilverSolder:

--- Quote from: rstofer on February 26, 2020, 10:17:01 pm ---
--- Quote from: bsfeechannel on February 26, 2020, 09:52:05 pm ---Now go and tell Joe Sixpack and Jane Average on the street that the metric system is as American as corn dogs. Please.

--- End quote ---

Why?  They're content with the existing system and have nothing to gain by the change.  What?  We gain conformity with Europe?  That really isn't a goal. Left to their daily lives, they probably don't give Europe a moment's thought per year!

When I arrived to work in Singapore, one of the very high up manager's asked what we thought of Singapore in the US.  I told him I didn't know, it had never come up in my family and I was pretty sure it didn't come up in many other families either.  If you had a relationship with the country, like family, sure, you gave it some thought.  The only thing I could think of was the jackets with the embroidered tiger that the sailors picked up when they stopped in for R&R.  It's kind of the same deal with Europe.  Every body knows it's 'over there' but nobody cares.

--- End quote ---

Americans tend not to appreciate that European countries are smaller and far less homogeneous than American states - so people grow up there comfortable with the fact that there are other countries/languages nearby, and (apart from brexiters) most Europeans understand the need to find common ground on which to build (including agreeing on weights and measures).

Europeans, on the other hand, tend not to appreciate how different US states actually are from each other...  I was shocked, personally, having gotten used to the East Coast how different things are in the South, and the West, and even the North!

bsfeechannel:

--- Quote from: rstofer on February 26, 2020, 10:17:01 pm ---Why?  They're content with the existing system and have nothing to gain by the change. 
--- End quote ---

If they had nothing to gain with the change, why did your country invest so much in the improvement of the metric system? For the common citizens of the other countries that use metric on a daily basis to profit?

It seems like a stupid move, to use taxpayer's money for the benefit the rest of the world, especially Europe, that you despise so much, and keep the taxpayers themselves out of it.

angrybird:
I just realized what is going on here.

If you non-USA guys are so insanely jealous of people that live in the USA, why don't you just move there instead of this futile bashing of such an irrelevant subject?

 :horse:

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